The Board denied service connection for cause of death due to lack of evidence showing a cardiovascular disability in service or post-service, and the decision was not based on clear and unmistakable error.
The deciding factor: The Board correctly applied the law at the time, which required proof of present disability and no objective clinical evidence supporting the claim.
- Claimed conditions
- Myocardial infarct, Cardiovascular disease
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- April 16, 2004
- Citation
- 0409945
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,710 · Granted: 15% (granted or partly granted, in the vetted decisions on this site)
Judge attribution: 2025 complete; earlier years partial.
This is a plain-language summary generated by AI from a public Board of Veterans’ Appeals decision. It can contain errors — always verify against the original. Look up the original decision on VA.gov (opens in a new tab) using citation 0409945.
What this means for you
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Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Denied
The Board denied service connection for cardiovascular disease, finding that it is not shown to be causally or etiologically related to any disease, injury, or incident during service. The Veteran's condition was attributed to post-service factors such as obesity and hypertension.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded all five service connection claims due to a duty to assist error in failing to obtain National Guard records for ADT or IDT. The Veteran's exposure to insecticides during his New York Air National Guard service is considered presumptive for hypertension, cardiovascular disease, CKD, COPD, and CLL.
- Granted
The veteran was granted an effective date of September 11, 2019 for the award of a total disability rating based on individual unemployability (TDIU) and basic eligibility to Dependents' Educational Assistance under 38 U.S.C. Chapter 35.
- Denied
The Board denied a request to revise the February 2014 rating decision, which established service connection for cause of death and assigned an effective date of December 14, 1987. The Board found no clear and unmistakable error in assigning this effective date.
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